Online business has never felt more important than during the pandemic days. Building an online website either for personal or for business purposes seems to be more critical than ever.
However, building a website is not as easy as eating a piece of cake, especially you have no idea about how to create one. To help you with this difficulty, WordPress has an easier approach so that anyone can build an online presence for themselves.
After powering almost 30% of the world’s website, no wonder WordPress is being popular day by day. Here, we present you with a step-by-step tutorial to help you build your WordPress website.
What do you need to create a website?
As I have already mentioned, creating an online presence for your personal or business website is an excellent way to grow your business both physically as well as virtually.
There are several ways to create a website and hundreds of different platforms as per your requirements. There are hundreds of things you can add on your website to help your website grow, but only a few that are must-have.
You must need the following to start a website and create an online presence:
- A domain name
A domain name is a name that you give the website that your users are provided. The domain name is written in the web browser, which is then the request is sent to the DNS, where the website’s IP address is accessed.
- Web hosting
A web hosting service is necessary to host your website from a server so that your website is available on the internet. Without a web host, your website won’t be available on the internet and hence no online business.
- Website platform
There are various website builders that can be used to build your WordPress website, from Wix, Weebly to Squarespace, you can find anything for anyone.
However, we recommend using self-hosted WordPress as your website platform for a better and smooth experience.
Why use the WordPress website?
Creating a website is a challenging task by itself. You can hire a developer to develop and a designer to design your website to look as professional as it can.
This results in more visitors and better revenue of your website. Using WordPress as your website platform offers great flexibility and customizability, along with control over your website.
The jam-packed features will not only help you build your website but helps you with managing your business in a more organized way.
WordPress is the perfect platform for you if you want to focus more on the contents and growth of your website and less on the technology.
How to build a WordPress website – step by step tutorial?
Here, I have summarized the process of building a WordPress website in six small and easy steps. Let us go through with every step in detail to understand the simple formula of WordPress.
Step 1: Setup
One of the biggest and most common mistakes that beginners make is by choosing the wrong website platform. WordPress.org, a self-hosted site is a perfect solution for most of the users.
The software comes with hundreds, if not thousands of designs, themes, plugins, and add-ons to help you with your website. To set up your WordPress you have to further go through the following steps:
Choose your web host
Choosing the web host to host your WordPress website is the first step to set up WordPress on your device. WordPress can be hosted from several numbers of different web hosting service providers.
However, there are three web hosts that are recommended by WordPress.org, and we recommend to choose one of them.
Select a plan
Even after choosing the web host, there are other varieties of plans that you have to make a choice from. You can find simple plans such as shared hosting to more complex plans such as VPS and dedicated hosting.
You can select the plan as per your requirements and also as per your budget. The most basic plans that you could find in almost any web hosting service providers are:
- Shared Hosting
- Managed WordPress Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
Sign up or Select your domain name
To sign up for your selected web host’s plan, you need to either select a new domain name or you can add the domain name you have already registered.
Ideally, it is always considered best to select the ‘.com’ domain name as it fits any kind of website you are thinking of creating.
Extra purchases
You would be asked to select a few features that might add extra pennies on your purchase. You can make those extra purchases if your website needs the extra feature to grow.
Step 2: Install WordPress
There are not many things left to do to install WordPress on your device and start your online business with it. You will find the installation setting on the cPanel of the web host you chose to work with.
You can choose the ‘Quick Install’ option where you will need to enter your website name, username, and password.
The installation will now begin for free and after your installation, you will be taken to your WordPress login URL and password. That’s all you need to do and you have had installed the WordPress on your device.
Step 3: Get familiar with the WordPress UI
User Interface is something you would want to get familiar with using the URL: “www.YOURDOMAIN.com/wp-admin”. After logging in, you will see the following things on your screen:
- Welcome message
- The current status
- Posts
- Media
- Pages
- Comments
- Appearance
- Plugins
- Users
- Settings
Step 4: Select your theme
WordPress theme helps to enhance your WordPress visual appearance using professionally designed templates that can be installed on your website easily.
Each WordPress website comes with a default basic theme, which might not be appealing to most users. But you can install any theme from the pool of thousands of paid WordPress themes on your website.
Most of these settings, you can find on the admin dashboard and it is similar for the themes. You can find themes inside Appearance >> Themes page and to add a new theme you can click on the “Add New” button.
A number of themes are shown in the list of themes where you can search for a particular theme as well. You can install the theme in no time and after installation, you can easily customize it by clicking the Customize link under the Appearance.
Step 5: Get your plugins
WordPress plugins allow you to add new features to your WordPress website. For example, photo galleries, contact form, search bar, etc. the plugins are like applications on your phone for your WordPress website. There are around 50,000 plugins available for WordPress which are both free as well as paid.
You can install a plugin the same way you install themes. There are various plugins that you must include in your website no matter what the purposes are and the list is:
Features
- WPForms Lite
- Envira Gallery Lite
- MonsterInsights
Website Optimization
- Yoast SEO
- WP Super Cache
Security
- Updraft Plus
- Sucuri
Step 6: Add content to your site
You can create two default content types with WordPress called posts and pages. Pages are static type content about your page such as content page, privacy policy, etc.
On the other hand, post type contents are the part of a blog and appear in chronological order. A separate page can be created for your blogs or any section such as news or you can create a whole website without any blog section at all.
You can add new pages by heading over Pages >> Add New section in the WordPress admin area. You need to add a title for your page and you can add content in the text editor, where you can add text, images, links, embed audio, video, etc.
After adding the content through the text editor, you need to publish the content by clicking on the publish|” button so that the post is live on your website.
Similarly, you can add new posts on your website through Posts >> Add New in your WordPress admin area. All the other steps are similar to that of creating the page on your WordPress website.
You can add post title, add content, and even alter with extra options like post categories, formats, and tags.
Step 7: Customize your website
Customizing the website is the final step in the establishment of the WordPress website. After creating content on your website, you will be able to customize it in a presentable share on your website so that more visitors are attracted to your website.
There are various things that you should go through while customizing your website. But we will be focusing on the key ones in the list below:
Setting up Static Front Page
Set up a static front page by visiting Settings >> Reading page in your WordPress admin section.
Changing Site Title and Tagline
Change your website’s title and tagline anytime by visiting Settings >> General page.
Set up Comment Settings
Go to Settings >> Discussions page to find “Before a comment appears” section and select the option that suits your website the best.
Add a Navigational Menu
Create a navigation menu by visiting Appearance >> Menu page
Conclusion
That is all you need to learn to start a WordPress website and get your online business running. The amazing thing about starting a WordPress website is having control over almost everything involving your online business.
You do not need to spend a fortune on hiring developers and designers to make your website look professional, instead you can focus on the growth of your business.
Creating and managing a website with WordPress is the easiest and budget-friendly approach. This article helps you with starting your online presence with WordPress and focuses on everything you need to know to make your website look as professional as possible.